Secession

I noted previous Orly Taitz titles1 about secessionist movements in Texas and Louisiana in the wake of Obama’s re-election. I didn’t mention the fact that there have been secessionist movements in the South for about as long as there has been a South.

The “birther” challenge, which galvanized so many Republican voters, expresses a deep unease with black claims to political inclusion and leadership that can be traced as far back as the 1860s. Then, white Southerners (and a fair share of white Northerners) questioned the legitimacy of black suffrage, viciously lampooned the behavior of new black officeholders and mobilized to murder and drive off local black leaders.

Hanh is right that political racism is not dead. I was about to type: “the Southerners of my generation and before who grew up in racially-segregated schools are dying off.” That’s not quite true because there are a large number of church-run schools in the South these days; I see ads for them on bumper stickers all the time. Articles have appeared discussing such schools and, for example, one study found that private religious schools are more racially segregated than public schools. The Christian Science Monitor reports in, “Are American schools returning to segregation?” that districting policies are re-segregating the public schools as well.

Nevertheless, despite historical revisionism, the South seceded from the Union over slavery, which was both an essential economic issue and an acknowledgment, frankly, that Southerners were scared witless that if the slaves ever got free, former slaveholders would be murdered in their beds. Today the economic interests of the South solidly rely on the United States, and for this reason alone talk of secession is nothing more than hotheads letting off steam. Secession is just white “trash talking”.

Hanh notes:

The anti-Obama riot at Ole Miss, integrated 50 years ago by James H. Meredith, was followed by a larger, interracial “We Are One Mississippi” candlelight march of protest.

1I was going to write “article” but lots of things on the Taitz web site are just titles with no body.

If I recall, there were many private “Christian” academies started in the 60’s to get around de-segregation. Of those that still exist, I imagine many are still rather homogeneous, even those who opened their admissions up over the years. Changing a demographic after decades of segregation takes time.

Birtherism may have been the best outlet for racial hatred that we could have expected after the election of America’s first black president. It hasn’t involved violence. But for the birther issue, or a similar effort to delegitimize President Obama, it’s possible we could have seen racists expressing their disapproval through violent acts.

“I am afraid I cannot be of much help with your problem, principally because I cannot imagine that such a question could ever reach the Supreme Court. To begin with, the answer is clear. If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede. (Hence, in the Pledge of Allegiance, “one Nation, indivisible.”) Secondly, I find it difficult to envision who the parties to this lawsuit might be. Is the State suing the United States for a declaratory judgment? But the United States cannot be sued without its consent, and it has not consented to this sort of suit.”

In all fairness, threats to secede from the union have not been a purely southern phenomenon. After all, some New Englanders proposed secession in the early 19th century. Additionally, there are problems throughout the country with respect to self-segregation and the tendency of many communities to follow demographic trends that arose in less enlightened times. A map of the demographics of Chicago shows some disturbing truths about how much progress is yet to be made.

Those secessionist ‘movements’ are actually just some random guy on the internet that has set up a petition on the White House web site.

WND is pushing it as “States move towards secession” or something like that, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the States, at least at the moment.

The White House has a facility whereby citizens can ‘petition’ the government. If they get 25,000 signatures, the White House promises to respond. Doesn’t mean they’ll act on it, but they will respond somehow (a thank you letter, electronically signed by the President I suppose).

My guess is that it is an attempt to slow the flood of everyone on the planet writing to the President or sending in a bazillion post cards or newspaper campaign slips.

Paul:
In general, southern states receive FAR more dollars from the federal gov than they contribute.Three weeks after secession they would all be begging beer money.

Not to mention that secession would requires Texans to bear the cost of raising and outfitting an army, building a fence from the Gulf of Mexico to El Paso (and probably along the border with New Mexico, as well), Immigration and customs personnel at all border crossings with Louisiana, Arkansas & Oklahoma – and that just scratches the surface.

It came from WND, I should have guessed. A relative on Facebook made a breathless, fearful post about the 17 or so “states” which have the petitioned the govt to secede. I went to whitehouse.gov, saw the petitions, pointed out that they were not from states, but individuals and they are also signed by people not from the particular state. The reply was something like, yes, they were from individuals, but the WH must take action if it gets enough signatures…..I am really hoping this is a relative by marriage.

Here is the link and the part about WH staff addressing a petition if it gets over 25,000 signatures.

“The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. We the People provides a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. We created We the People because we want to hear from you. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.”

I signed a petition that topped the 25000 threshold. I received an email response, as promised. It was well written and responsive to the concerns we expressed in the petition, but that was it.

Funny the number of non-Texans signing the petition. Maybe they are hoping Texas will leave? I hope we get to see response to the petition! RWNJs are going to be very unhappy when the email doesn’t mention a date for creation of the Republic of Texas.

They better hurry. According to their Senator-elect, Ted Cruz, Texas may be a blue state soon:

In not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat,” he said. “If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We won’t be talking about Ohio, we won’t be talking about Florida or Virginia, because it won’t matter. If Texas is bright blue, you can’t get to two-seventy electoral votes. The Republican Party would cease to exist. We would become like the Whig Party. Our kids and grandkids would study how this used to be a national political party. ‘They had Conventions, they nominated Presidential candidates. They don’t exist anymore

Without Texas, Florida and Virginia (and North Carolina is at least purple, having gone for Obama in 2008 and only going to Romney by a couple of points this time) it would be a pretty sorry Confederacy.

By the way, Ted Cruz was born in Canada to a Cuban citizen father and a US citizen mother and believes he is eligible. Looks like the Republicans have a bigger problem with the birthers in 2016 than the Dems. After all, Hillary was born in Scranton, PA (like Joe Biden) and her parents were US citizens I am pretty sure.

A few rightwing forums have mentioned “petitions for secession” — it turns out that these are posted on the White House website as petitions for the President, such things as issuing pardons or trying to persuade some policy. In most instances, as of this morning, the petitions were at most a couple of thousand signatures apiece (one petition for each of several states – mostly of the old Confederacy), not all the signatures by people living in that state, and none of them signed by anyone we’d consider important. As a comparison, a petition to legalize marijuana seems to have more signatures than all the secession petitions combined.

But even if millions of people signed these secession petitions, they are petitions to the President and it’s very unclear what the President could do with/for the petitioners. John Quincy Adams, when a member of Congress, was put on trial to be censured (he was acquitted) just for relaying a petition from a Massachusetts town asking to secede rather than belong to a Union that allowed slavery.

arrrogantlyignorant:
I’m wondering why the people that are signing these petitions don’t go to the nearest consulate and simply renounce their U.S. citizenship, and be immediately deported as illegal aliens.

The White House has a facility whereby citizens can ‘petition’ the government. If they get 25,000 signatures, the White House promises to respond. Doesn’t mean they’ll act on it, but they will respond somehow (a thank you letter, electronically signed by the President I suppose).

Laughing is a response. Does that count?

Also, if we have to have another Civil War, may I suggest starting at Fort Sumter again?

I visited there during a school field trip in junior high, and it was just lovely.

arrrogantlyignorant:
I’m wondering why the people that are signing these petitions don’t go to the nearest consulate and simply renounce their U.S. citizenship, and be immediately deported as illegal aliens.

Seems like a much easier solution….

You can only renounce US citizenship while you are in a foreign country.

B. ELEMENTS OF RENUNCIATION

A person wishing to renounce his or her U.S. citizenship must voluntarily and with intent to relinquish U.S. citizenship:

1. appear in person before a U.S. consular or diplomatic officer,
2. in a foreign country (normally at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate); and
3. sign an oath of renunciation

Renunciations that do not meet the conditions described above have no legal effect. Because of the provisions of section 349(a)(5), Americans cannot effectively renounce their citizenship by mail, through an agent, or while in the United States. In fact, U.S. courts have held certain attempts to renounce U.S. citizenship to be ineffective on a variety of grounds, as discussed below.

Let me see if I have the secession movement right. The Republican Party, having just lost the election, and having lost the opportunity to control the Senate, in part because of the perception by some that my party is infected with nuts, is now going to demonstrate that birtherism was a mild reaction to the election of a Black President. Now we are going to move on to full blown insanity.

I’ve looked at the petitions. First name and initial only. No proof that anyone is actually a citizen or registered to vote in the state relating to that petition. Definitely a variant of I’m taking my basketball home since you won’t let me win. No ID shown in order to sign, by a crowd that would return to any form of voter supression which keeps minorities from voting.

And to look at Dr. Taitz’s web site one would come to the conclusion that secesion is constitutionally mandated if 25,000 anonymous idiots sign an on-line petition in a state with 10 million residents. Some 1865 case is dismissed out of hand. There is a total lack of understanding that Justice Scalia says states can’t secede. Where will these folks get five votes (or even one) on the Supreme Court. The President wonlt agree. The Senate wonlt agree. And, my guess is the House wonlt agree, although it is possible the secession movement might get 5 votes there.

In that last few days there have been some thoughtful comments on what is to be done, from Frank Rich to Jon Huntsman. Dr. Taitz and the secession crowd seem intent on a different path, persuading those Americans who still believe the Republican Party is rational of the error of their ways. Rather than figure a way out of simply representing the white male country club crowd (which describes me to a T), we are going to continue to attack the majority which President Obama achieved. Crazy.

arrrogantlyignorant: I’m wondering why the people that are signing these petitions don’t go to the nearest consulate and simply renounce their U.S. citizenship, and be immediately deported as illegal aliens.

… be deported to where?

Humorously, a petition has been started at “We the People” suggesting all those signing ‘secesh’ petitions be deported. And some of the petitions are duplicated … I spotted 2 for Okieland. Maybe there’s a vergiage difference (… he charitably muses…)https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions

Amazing how humans manage to stupidify everything. This is like using a cell phone to call from the grocery store to have a 30 min discussion of what flavor of ice cream to buy.

The reckoning comes when their kids mature and blow the roof off of runaway, suicide, pregnancy, and divorce rates.

When I meet a “home schooler” who has advanced degrees in any field (let alone in education) I might temper my opinions a bit. I have met more than a few home schooling parents and, with one exception, I am highly suspicious of their rationale for doing it. The one exception is a family who lives on a sailing ship year round. The child was born on the ship.

I love how she thinks Obama is a tyrant and usurper and foreign national occupying the White House and the most corrupt President ever yadda yadda yadda…. but she thinks that he won’t send out the army. Do tyrants usually just let rebellions go with impugnity?

People are asking me what to do:

1. contact governor of TX Rick Perry or a governor of your state and seek an announcement of a referendum vote 30 days from now. If you recall, there was a similar referendum vote in Quebec to secede from Canada, but they did not get the majority vote.

2 If majority of Texans or citizens of other states vote in the referendum vote to secede from the US, then the state legislature and Governor need to ratify this vote and announce the Independence of TX and secession from the U.S. with the simultaneous recognition by the United Nations as an independent state.

3. People of TX will start breathing, as they will not have to work 4 months every year to feed an army of millions of freeloaders in Blue States, they will not have to pay for the enormous machine of the federal bureaucracy.

4. This is not 1861. Obama will not send an army to occupy Texas, as it was in the civil war. Most of the U.S. army by a margin of 2;1 or 3:1 voted against Obama and will not shoot the citizens of TX, they will not follow any orders to attack law abiding citizens of a sister state. This might be the only way to end the usurpation of the U.S. Presidency, massive fraud and deprivation of civil rights. At this point I no longer believe that I will find one honest judge who will do a thing. The corruption in the government and courts is too far foregone to expect anything to be done by the courts to end the usurpation and treason.

The state of TX or any other state can have a referendum vote on secession within 30 days and be an indeprndent nation within 60 days.

Bran Mak Morn:Where’s Sarah Palin? Certainly she can help tell them how to handle a separatist movement and still run for GOP office!

Sarah and Todd Palin, and the Alaska Independence Party:

The Palins’ un-American activities – Imagine if the Obamas had hooked up with a violently anti-American group in league with the government of Iran.

“My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”

This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.

Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that’s the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. (“Keep up the good work,” Palin told AIP members. “And God bless you.”)

It is a myth to think that the “white male country club crowd” was ever a majority group on its own, even in the fantasy version of 1950’s TV. Leaving all demographic racial aspects aside, the “country club” economic demographic has always only had more money than it can ever match in percentage of the population numbers. Even if you want to be more “inclusive” and broaden that to a “suburban” crowd, we still remain nothing but a minority slice of the economic pie.

Just pointing out that what is needed is a competing arena of broad-based sane and rational coalitions focused on 21st century solutions. That is what our political party structure needs.

Whether it is sincere or sane, any party that would attempt to focus on merely representing the “white male country club crowd” is not a real nor serious political party at all. And I say this as someone who could easily fall into that classification, if I chose to.

No, what you are describing is not much different than minor parties that are built on very narrow issues and which function as little more than fanciful wishful thinking and often childish pouts. That is not a real political party….that is a member’s only club house merely smugly talking to itself , while the rest of the world moves on to deal with serious issues, without it.

John Reilly: Rather than figure a way out of simply representing the white male country club crowd (which describes me to a T), we are going to continue to attack the majority which President Obama achieved. Crazy

Mitt Romney secured 60 percent of the white vote, a majority that when achieved by George H.W. Bush in 1988 propelled him to victory with 400 electoral votes, but which this year was not enough to guarantee Romney’s success ….. 206 electoral votes

The GOP has been allowing full blown insanity to run amuck for years now… the perception exists for a reason – because its is true…and a bunch of good-intentioned yet in denial decent folks continue to enable and prop up its bad behavior. The nuts took over quite some time ago…and it is way past time for some folks to face up to it and realize that the GOP they wish existed or think once existed is nothing like the actual power structure that they’ve been blindly still supporting…

I guess my major frustration here is how anyone here can be either surprised or shocked by this utterly predictable (and indeed, repeatedly predicted) poor behavior and immature sore-loser reactions to this election. It is not like there hasn’t been ample and often discussed examples of this over the past four years – both here and other places. Heck, this is not a forum that tolerates baseless specualtion…go back through the years of posts here and look at the prognostications from back then about what this election would result in…the birther behaviors all throughout these years have supported very predictable extrapolations for such speculation – and nearly always at the top of the list was that Obama’s re-election would lead to a period of increased cries of secession from the sore-loser crowd.

So yeah, expect that to be one of the dominant theme’s over the next several months, if not more. No, secession is NOT going to happen, regardless of how “threaty” these a-holes get.

But yeah, the bitter denialists will increasingly glom onto it and continue to beat that secession drum until it is a dead horse, just like all the rest of their sad attempts…and the die-hard dead-enders that refuse to let go and move on will resurface to drag out its zombie corpse over and over again…

And I suspect we’ll see an uptick of the “anticrist” meme here and there too… because really, what else do these losers have left to migrate towards, in their ever-increasingly desperate need for boorish behavior and drama-queen level hissy fits?

So yeah, all that WAS often predicted and remains completely predictable and no surprise. Just as birthers losing birther lawsuits is as easy as prediction that the sun will rise each day. Those aren’t mere “perceptions”, those are very predictable and sad aspects of the reality of our politics and very connected to the willful political rot on the right and in the GOP.

Trust me, I’d love to see sanity and responsible behavior lead the day…but in the GOP, such voices are sadly nothing more than outliers and without any actual power to do anything more than prop up and provide hollow excuses to a operation that really has very little left to offer or sell, other than hate, fear, ignorance and extreme selfishness.

John Reilly: Let me see if I have the secession movement right. The Republican Party, having just lost the election, and having lost the opportunity to control the Senate, in part because of the perception by some that my party is infected with nuts, is now going to demonstrate that birtherism was a mild reaction to the election of a Black President. Now we are going to move on to full blown insanity.

Yes, of course it did. No surprise there at all. But if you think that the “white vote” is mainly made up of “country club types”, you are completely deluded, which is my whole point. Fact is, only a small percentage of America (regardless of race) would aptly be described as “country club types”. Heck, only a fraction of white collar workers and only a small portion of “sububan” demographics qualify as such. So yeah, most of those working poor, blue-collar types and yes, just about all of the government aid dependent categories are dominated by the dominant “white” racial demographic…and THEY, by sheer statistical numbers, actually provide a greater proportion of that 60% of the “white” vote that goes to Romney and the GOP.

Mitt Romney secured 60 percent of the white vote, a majority that when achieved by George H.W. Bush in 1988 propelled him to victory with 400 electoral votes, but which this year was not enough to guarantee Romney’s success ….. 206 electoral votes

Thrifty: If you recall, there was a similar referendum vote in Quebec to secede from Canada, but they did not get the majority vote.

There were 2. The second one came very close. Had it passed, it is not certain what the response of the federal government would have been. Most likely to negotiate, but the negotiations would have been complex-how to divide the debt, compensation for federal facilities in Quebec, trade agreements etc., how to handle monetary policy since Quebec intened to use the Canadian dollar.

Of course Canada never had a civil war to decide whether provinces could separate. In fact, the Canadian confederation came about in reaction to the US Civil War and fears hat the US would invade to retaliate for supposed British help to the South. So the leaders of Quebec and the federal govenment (whose leaders were predominantly Quebecois at the time) would have had to play it by ear.

Thrifty: People of TX will start breathing, as they will not have to work 4 months every year to feed an army of millions of freeloaders in Blue States, they will not have to pay for the enormous machine of the federal bureaucracy.

The number of “freeloaders” is higher in red states than in the blue states. almost all of which pay much more in taxes than they get back. And it would be only fair to demand that Texans assume a proportionate share of the national debt. Furthermore, if they chose to use the US dollar, they would be in the situation of having a currency into whose policy-making body they had no input. Sort of like Greece.

donna: G: Seems like this is the right place to link to this article that looks at how white folks voted based on geography. Shockingly, there is a divide between the South and the rest of the nation. In 6 of the 9 states where whites make up 85% or more of the population Obama outperformed Kerry in 2004 (though Obama did better than Romney in only 4 of those states)

Excellent article MattR! Thanks for sharing. I found these excerpts particularly telling:

Romney’s strong national showing among white voters was almost exclusively driven by historic support from Southern and Appalachian white voters.
…
Outside the South, Romney’s performance among white voters was anything but historic. He ran behind Bush’s tallies in most of the northern half of the United States. …. These states aren’t exactly representative of white voters elsewhere, but the big picture is about right: outside of the South, Romney ran behind Bush among white voters, but he made up for it in Appalachia and the rest of the South.
…Obama also preserved many of his gains in affluent and well-educated suburban counties where many believed that Romney would perform well. Republicans won Jefferson, CO, Chester, PA, Loudon, VA, Wake, NC, and Somerset, NJ, in every presidential election from 1968 through 2004, but Obama carried all of them with the exception of Chester County, where Obama’s performance was still better than any other Democrat since Johnson. Obama also performed near ’08 levels in moderate Democratic-leaning suburbs like Fairfax, Polk, Franklin, Hennepin, or Oakland Counties.
…Making matters worse for Republicans, Democratic Senate candidates ran as well as or ahead of the president in white areas in just about every competitive state, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and Ohio. The performance of these candidates suggests that the GOP’s issues extend beyond specific problems with Romney or the unique appeal of the president. This particular writer can’t judge whether Republicans were hurt more by abortion, tax policy, or something else, but it’s clear that Romney’s issue among rural, white northerners wasn’t just Bain Capital, and his problem in affluent suburbs wasn’t just his pledge to end funding to Planned Parenthood.

So yeah, the GOP has a big demographic issue beyond Obama…and beyond just racial diversity of white VS…”everyone else”. As your article points out, it very much dominates in appeal in rural areas and especially in the South…so while there is some appeal to “country club whites”…somehow, I don’t see that as the demographic white party “strongholds” borne out by the data. Plus, the data also shows both Obama and the Dems making a fair showing with northern suburban and other “well-to-do” whites…which I’m fairly certain would include a fair amount of “country club whites” in those particular areas that actually support Obama and the Dem’s vision over what the GOP has offered up to them…

MattR:donna: G: Seems like this is the right place to link to this article that looks at how white folks voted based on geography.Shockingly, there is a divide between the South and the rest of the nation.In 6 of the 9 states where whites make up 85% or more of the population Obama outperformed Kerry in 2004 (though Obama did better than Romney in only 4 of those states)

I am NOT a Liberal-Demo-Communist,
I am NOT a Queer, I am NOT a Black person,
I am NOT a Muslim or a Anti-Christian Liberal-Socialist-Progressive Democrat hell bent on making all Christians pay for some percieved (or manufactured) slight.

I won’t bow down and worship at the Alter of thee Obama like the members of Liberal News Mafia. I will not kiss the ring of the Communist Pope like Hollywood does. I will not dance around the Golden Calf in the Whitehouse. Obama worship is Pagan Idolatry! There is only one true GOD and his name is not Barack.

So the Merciful and Magnificant Marxist Messiah thte ObamaLamaDingDong can pretend that he is the President of the USA all he wants, but that country doesn’t exist anymore. OK fine, geographically the Land Mass known as the USA still exists. But the United States of America, as founded and fought for, is GONE FOREVER just as Germany was changed forever after Hitler and the Russia changed after Joseph Stalin.

The USA that we grew up in is lost forever its time to start OVER!
Secession is the only answer!

donna:
G:
Mitt Romney secured 60 percent of the white vote, a majority that when achieved by George H.W. Bush in 1988 propelled him to victory with 400 electoral votes, but which this year was not enough to guarantee Romney’s success ….. 206 electoral votes

The electorate is becoming more diverse and fractured, and in our lifetime, there will almost certainly never be another national election which will allow one party or the other to win based on any one demographic group. In other words, the days of being able to rely on the “white vote” or the “protestant vote” or the “evangelical vote” or whatever, is over and will not return for many years. It may never return.

Additionally, what is left of the “white vote” is more divided than the GOP would like to think or would like to say. Professionals, urban and suburban whites, and women in general are more and more likely to vote for Democrats.

A friend sent me this a few days ago, and I must say that I agree with the sentiment generally. Well worth a read:

ryan said of obama: “Well, he got turnout. The president should get credit for achieving record-breaking turnout numbers from urban areas for the most part, and that did win the election for him.”

politico’s James Hohmann: the Romney-Ryan ticket also lost predominately white and rural states like Iowa and New Hampshire, and underperformed in Midwestern states.

i expect republicans to pick-up on ohio’s husted’s idea of dividing up electoral votes by congressional district (since suppression backfired) – in ohio, that would have given the state to mitt

Dave Weigel at Slate explains what a bad idea this would be.

I can’t overstate how disastrous this would be. Instead of a small chance of a popular vote/electoral vote split, you’d have, every four years, multiple chances for a majority of voters to support one candidate, but partisan gerrymanders handing the election to the loser. It would slant the election away from urban areas and give disproportionate powers to rural areas. You couldn’t come up with a more tenacious assault on one-man-one-vote. Don’t do it, people.

can’t someone create a computer model to divide the states into districts rather than the current, ridiculous system?

I wanted to add that the GOP is going to have to take a long, hard look at the “Southern Strategy” if it plans to win again nationally. Races which were previously not competitive with white Democrat candidates are suddenly becoming competitive, even with minority candidates like President Obama, due to the changing nature of the parties hand-in-hand with changing demographics.

Just look at Georgia: President Obama lost Georgia by 8 points to Romney last week, which sounds like a lot until you realize that Mr. Obama didn’t have a ground game in Georgia at all. He lost by only 8 points in a Southern state without campaigning. That’s nothing short of amazing.

To further illustrate, Mr. Obama lost North Carolina by 2% in a bad economy last week, but just 12 years earlier, Al Gore lost by 13 points.

If Lee Atwater was here, I sincerely believe he’d be telling his fellow GOPers that it is time to abandon the Southern Strategy and to find another way to win.

Spot on!!! And thank you for sharing those two excellent articles. I too really agreed with the sentiment expressed by Mr. Eric Garland in his article, especially his point about “meanness” . Also, in terms of his predictions for the GOP, as I have often mentioned, I think his #2 (disband and reform) is actually the best long-term approach. I seriously think they are way too far gone for #1 to take place (self-correct on their own). No, call me cynical, but I expect most of the well-intentioned reflections to meet too much resistance from the base and the cynical money manipulators who own the GOP machine…and mostly denial and doubling-down on bad behavior is what we’ll really be stuck with.

Here’s another good article on this topic that I wanted to share as well:

No, conservatives. You can’t slap a fresh coat of paint on that. There is no PR firm to help you win that argument. You may win it with a majority of older, entitled, mostly male white baby boomers and slightly fewer Gen Xers. The conservative folks who grew up in a pretty good economy, had the leftover benefits of a society built by their betters and their more liberal contemporaries, enjoyed the fruits of it and now fearfully wish to pull the ladder up behind them, believing they built their success themselves and seeking to deny even a small part of it to others.

In the end, I agree with your final assessment – as a “white guy”, I don’t see any of this as a threat at all…and think diversity of peoples and opinions are a healthy, necessary and generally good thing.

Zixi of Ix: The electorate is becoming more diverse and fractured, and in our lifetime, there will almost certainly never be another national election which will allow one party or the other to win based on any one demographic group. In other words, the days of being able to rely on the “white vote” or the “protestant vote” or the “evangelical vote” or whatever, is over and will not return for many years. It may never return.

Additionally, what is left of the “white vote” is more divided than the GOP would like to think or would like to say. Professionals, urban and suburban whites, and women in general are more and more likely to vote for Democrats.

A friend sent me this a few days ago, and I must say that I agree with the sentiment generally. Well worth a read:

Canada is nice this time of year. Why not start there? In fact, why not choose to live the rest of your life there? The US of A ill needs whiny little gobshites like you, who can’t stomach their candidate of choice losing.

In throwing such a silly and childish tantrum about what you supposedly “aren’t”, you’ve simply revealed what you really are: just another inconsequential LOSER.

Carpenter: I am NOT a Liberal-Demo-Communist,
I am NOT …*waaaugh* *waaaugh* *waaaugh*.

Germany changed “forever”, eh, O’ drama queen…? Seems like they survived and recovered from the mess of Hitler pretty well…

…so welcome to the reality of an every changing world, where your sad little EOTWAWKI fantasies don’t stand up to the passage of time…

Carpenter: But the United States of America, as founded and fought for, is GONE FOREVER just as Germany was changed forever after Hitler

*yawn* Oh, why don’t you just “self-deport” then, you cry baby…

Carpenter: The USA that we grew up in is lost forever its time to start OVER!
Secession is the only answer!

Yeah, time for you to realize that your imaginary version of America never existed in the first place and thankfully, will not come about either. The civilized world wins and you knuckle-dragging, fear mongering, over-reacting throwbacks lose….again.

I am confused by this statement. Hitler was only in power for 12 years. After him, Germany became a model of democracy and pascifism. If that is what the US will be after Obama, is that not good? And unlike Schicklgruber, he won’t have killed millions and started a world war. All he will have done is give health insuance to 40 million uninsured and perhaps brought the top tax rate back to (at most) where it was under Bill Clinton.

That was really good and certainly I agree. My guess is that the Republicans will stumble around over the next 4 years pretending that they can fix their problems by doing something on immigration and putting a Hispanic on the ticket. I think they will find that doesn’t cut it. They will have to lose probably one more time to really get the message that denial of realities like evolution and climate change and human sexuality are not sustainable. People, regardless of their ethnic background, want problems addressed,not denied.

Much will depend on the recovery. Assuming things continue at the current slow but steady pace, especially with the revival in the housing market, Obama will get the credit, and, by extension, the Democratic candidate will be strongly favored. If things stall or slip back, which is not impossible, the Republicans would have an opening. But they would have to find some way to reassure people on the social issues, which will not be easy for them to do. Maybe follow Cllinton on abortion: “safe, legal and rare” and leave the definition of marriage to the states.

Carpenter: The USA that we grew up in is lost forever its time to start OVER!

The America I grew up in had higher taxes, higher unemployment, more people on welfare, high inflation, terrorist hijacking and bombings, skyrocketing deficits, threats of nuclear war and some actual government conspiracies and cover-ups. America 10 years before I grew up would not even let an African American have the same rights as others.

My great Aunt in her 80’s called tonight after watching Fox News – she seriously thought her state was seceding and was scared to death she’d lose her social security. Congratulatons Fox News on scaring old people to death.

and The Confederacy of Takers

President Obama’s opponents have unwittingly come up with a brilliant plan to avoid the “fiscal cliff.” They want to secede from the union.

If Obama were serious about being a good steward of the nation’s finances, he’d let them.

Scientist: That was really good and certainly I agree.My guess is that the Republicans will stumble around over the next 4 years pretending that they can fix their problems by doing something on immigration and putting a Hispanic on the ticket.I think they will find that doesn’t cut it.They will have to lose probably one more time to really get the message that denial of realities like evolution and climate change and human sexuality are not sustainable.People, regardless of their ethnic background, want problems addressed,not denied.

I think the problems are deeper than can realistically be fixed in four years.

One thing that resonated with me, and I would bet a lot of people in the south and the coal/rust belts, but which barely got a mention in the run-up to the election was Romney’s comments to business owners in June. He said:

“I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections,” Romney said. “And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope, I hope you pass those along to your employees.”

He continued: “Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision, and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.

I’ve had the privilege of living both in a smallish southern mill town, and in a very small Appalachian town with ties to coal mining. When I heard this, it reminded me of what I’d heard living in those places, about when they were company towns. How you deferred to the mill owner or mine owner, how you owed everything to the company and the man you worked for.

Those comments told me that the GOP thought they had this thing in the bag. They thought that they were going to win, and win big, and they were not afraid to throw their weight around. They were okay insulting and belittling working people. They were okay actually telling adults how they should vote if they knew what was good for them, under penalty of job loss. They were okay threatening people with the scary black man.

These kinds of comments, which were repeated over and over by conservative business owners in the weeks and days before the election, say so much the GOP and how they really don’t “get it” and aren’t anywhere near being in danger of “getting it”. It’s going to take more than four years at the current rate of denial to “get it”.

Go hang out on any conservative site on the net right now. Everything is about how the GOP didn’t go far enough right and how Mr. Obama stole the election. In the last week, they’ve managed to spin a whole new set of fantasies about how Obama stole the election.

These are the voters the GOP has to please. This is the base they have to play to.

Much will depend on the recovery.Assuming things continue at the current slow but steady pace, especially with the revival in the housing market, Obama will get the credit, and, by extension, the Democratic candidate will be strongly favored. If things stall or slip back, which is not impossible, the Republicans would have an opening.But they would have to find some way to reassure people on the social issues, which will not be easy for them to do.Maybe follow Cllinton on abortion: “safe, legal and rare” and leave the definition of marriage to the states.

Mr. Obama managed to do the near-impossible during the last election: he took a crappy economy and a crappy recovery, and against all odds, made the point that things were so screwed up that there was no way he could have fixed things in four years.

If the GOP continues with the crazy, with the paternalism, with the lack of depth, and with the racism, they won’t win in 2014 or 2016, either, with or without a bad economy.

to the first State to succeed, I will move there with family, our businesses and about 100 of our friends and employees. I know it will not happen as the Fed. gov has become the master of us slaves and they will not tolerate any state not following the fed’s wishes. The war between the states was also about sovereignty and commodities owned by the south and the threat of not sharing with the north. Do your research and see that individual states would be better off not support the fed gov. monster.

Another Slave:
to the first State to succeed, I will move there with family, our businesses and about 100 of our friends and employees. I know it will not happen as the Fed. gov has become the master of us slaves and they will not tolerate any state not following the fed’s wishes. The war between the states was also about sovereignty and commodities owned by the south and the threat of not sharing with the north. Do your research and see that individual states would be better off not support the fed gov. monster.

Don’t let the door to America hit you on your seditionist butt on the way out.

Though Congress remains whiter, older, and more male than the nation as a whole, the incoming class will be the most diverse in history.

The 113th Congress will be more representative of the United States from race to religion, and from gender to sexual orientation. It will look more like America with 4 new African American representatives, 10 new Latinos, 5 new Asian Americans and 24 women in the House or Senate.* It will believe more like America with the first two Hindu congresspeople, the first Buddhist senator, and the first non-theist to openly acknowledge her belief prior to getting elected. It will love more like America, with 4 new LGBT congresspeople or senators, including the first openly bisexual congresswoman and the first openly gay congressman of color. And it will be younger, with four new congressmen born in the 1980s.

Though Congress remains whiter, older, and more male than the nation as a whole, the incoming class will be the most diverse in history.

The 113th Congress will be more representative of the United States from race to religion, and from gender to sexual orientation. It will look more like America with 4 new African American representatives, 10 new Latinos, 5 new Asian Americans and 24 women in the House or Senate.* It will believe more like America with the first two Hindu congresspeople, the first Buddhist senator, and the first non-theist to openly acknowledge her belief prior to getting elected. It will love more like America, with 4 new LGBT congresspeople or senators, including the first openly bisexual congresswoman and the first openly gay congressman of color. And it will be younger, with four new congressmen born in the 1980s.

Daniel: Do your research and see that individual states would be better off not support the fed gov. monster.

So, is that why NY/NJ are asking the feds for disaster relief? Because they would be better off on their own? Is that why utility crews from across the country are there working 24/7, because one state can handle a big mess just fine?

I see the power of collective action, the strength in numbers eludes you.

Oh, hey, here’s a good one for winger secesh wannabes …. how you gonna take your true love, The Most Powerful Military-Industrial Complex in the World, with you? Comparing any single state’s Guard forces to the DoD … man, that’s a painful downgrade. Quite a sacrifice you silly persons pretend to be willing to make!

donna: can’t someone create a computer model to divide the states into districts rather than the current, ridiculous system?

Pima County Arizona did that in the mid 1970’s; it was one of the first computerized redistricting processes in the country, I believe. I helped by writing the routines that allowed the CIty of Tucson’s brain dead computer to read the U.S. Census tapes (our FORTRAN compiler couldn’t see data records longer than 255 bytes and couldn’t read multi-file tapes). The computer did about 95% of the process, but then the ‘edges’ were smoothed out by hand to make them more practical.

Reading these comments on secession is quite enlightening as it only emphasizes the fact that we have quite a few uneducated nutjobs in this country. Worse yet, many of them are getting their info from Orly Taitz who is under the mistaken impression that all it takes is a petition with 25K names on it and presto! The President has to allow whichever state has asked for permission to do so, to secede. Taitz also mistakenly spoke about how nice it would be for the red states not to have to pay taxes that supported the blue states as they have been doing for decades. A couple minutes of research would show her how wrong she is but she’s never been known as someone who seeks the truth unless it’s beneficial to what she’s trying to do. In most cases, the truth hurts her cases so she accepts and perpetuates the lies she wants her followers to believe.

The irony of this witch from Moldova, who has been claiming to be so patriotic for the last four years and is now inciting people to secede from the U.S. is beyond belief. It’s comical that they are asking her advice on how to do so. They apparently have never listened to the recordings of her in court nor read the transcripts in order to see just how truly incompetent she is or how inept she is in the courtroom. The reality is that Taitz is guilty of sedition and treason and should be deported after her citizenship is revoked.

All these people who want to secede could be given one state, close to a border, with a fence built around it, where they can all live together in misery and complain to each other. They can make Orly their freakin’ queen. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this won’t happen because it’s not the way our country works. The 14th Amendment prohibits secession so while they may not like being here with us, we’re not exactly filled with joy at the thought of them being here, either. However, nobody is stopping you from revoking your U.S. citizenship and leaving the country. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!

Orly was all giddy because searches on the secession movement were one of the top searches on some search engine (Yahoo I think). She seems to be laboring under the idea that these searches are mostly from supporters, and not, as is more likely, morbidly curious detractors.

JPotter: So, is that why NY/NJ are asking the feds for disaster relief? Because they would be better off on their own? Is that why utility crews from across the country are there working 24/7, because one state can handle a big mess just fine?

Here is what a Republican Governor, reknowned as-how shall I put this?-a heavyweight, had to say yesterday:

“There are plenty of instances that can happen in our country where a state by itself is not equipped to deal with the results of a natural disaster,” he continued. “And so the country needs to band together to help its other states to be able to get over something that has been disproportionately foisted on one or two or three states of the 50. But no, it hasn’t turned me from a limited-government guy to a big-government guy.”

Zixi of Ix: They were okay insulting and belittling working people. They were okay actually telling adults how they should vote if they knew what was good for them, under penalty of job loss.

Nothing new here, by the way. FDR from October 1936:

“Here is an amazing paradox! The very employers and politicians and publishers who talk most loudly of class antagonism and the destruction of the American system now undermine that system by this attempt to coerce the votes of the wage earners of this country. It is the 1936 version of the old threat to close down the factory or the office if a particular candidate does not win. It is an old strategy of tyrants to delude their victims into fighting their battles for them.

Every message in a pay envelope, even if it is the truth, is a command to vote according to the will of the employer. But this propaganda is worse- it is deceit.”

And….

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.”

I think we’re overlooking a great opportunity here.
Just think- all sorts of criminals will flock to these seceded states.
They’ll have no federal laws or enforcement.
Drug dealers, rapists, child molesters and murderers will leave the blue states and set up shop in the red.
No longer will criminals head towards Mexico.
Texas is closer.
Mexican cartels can come too.
They’ll enjoy cheaper and less risky distribution.

Scientist: We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Oh, glory days, when Americans still used the phrase “organized mob” without the definite article!

You need Slavic blood to appreciate that. Of course, Orly may speak a Slavic labguage, but she will never understand the difference between “unorgainzed mob” (meaning her secessionist flying monkeys) and “the organized mob”.

There is precislely ZERO ways for a state to legally and Constitutionally leave the United States, see Texas v White

“In accepting original jurisdiction, the court ruled that Texas had remained a state ever since it first joined the Union, despite its joining the Confederate States of America and its being under military rule at the time of the decision in the case. In deciding the merits of the bond issue, the court further held that the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were “absolutely null”.”

The only way would be to first get a Constitutional Amendment raised that would allow such a thing to occur, then go through the ratification process and only THEN would it be possible for a state to secede from the USA.

Thrifty:
Orly was all giddy because searches on the secession movement were one of the top searches on some search engine (Yahoo I think).She seems to be laboring under the idea that these searches are mostly from supporters, and not, as is more likely, morbidly curious detractors.

Didn’t she think she was supposed to win the primary, in part, because she was coming up high on internet searches? She never learns.

In response to the election and reelection President Obama the right wing, especially the birthers, have had a fondness of talking about being a slave and now secession. I wonder where they get the slave part from?

Northland10: Didn’t she think she was supposed to win the primary, in part, because she was coming up high on internet searches?

The same reason many on the right thought Romney would win by a landslide – “everyone I know will vote Romney, including those two people I know who voted for Obama in 2008”. Coupled with a couple hundred other anecdotical stories by fellow right-wingers plus the usual avoidance of any “liberal” media painting an opposite picture and you get the mindset “just about everyone thinks like I do”.

Orly also believes that because she generates lots of Google hits, the birther issue is “popular”. Well, the elections soundly proved otherwise.

The Magic M: Orly also believes that because she generates lots of Google hits, the birther issue is “popular”. Well, the elections soundly proved otherwise.

I am sure she usually googles “Orly Taitz” without the quotation marks. Now and then she may copy paste it from a text with quotation marks, and of course finding then that the total number of googles is reduced to about one hundredth of what it used to be.

Which she will then proclaim on her excuse for a website as proof irrefutable that Google is secretly working for Obama.

US Citizen:
I think we’re overlooking a great opportunity here.
Just think- all sorts of criminals will flock to these seceded states.
They’ll have no federal laws or enforcement.
Drug dealers, rapists, child molesters and murderers will leave the blue states and set up shop in the red.
No longer will criminals head towards Mexico.
Texas is closer.
Mexican cartels can come too.
They’ll enjoy cheaper and less risky distribution.

I would not be surprised if most of the non-Texans signing the Texan petition think the same way.

We all know that there IS a way of allowing states like Texas to leave the Union. It is called constitutional amendment. So the irony of it all is that it is not going to happen because REPUBLICANS control the House and 30 state legislatures,

If you think a seceding state could just walk away from its share of the national debt incurred while it was in the Union, you are in la-la land. Based on its having around 7% of the US population, if Texas goes, it’s on the hook for approximately $1.2 trillion. Bondholders would probably demand immediate payment.

misha marinsky: I forgot to mention: Coburn Optical Industries is in Muskogee.

Misha, shhhhhhh! You’re not supposed to notice that Coburn is a fortunate son! Believe the fiction that he is a simple country doctor that delivered a million babies, pinched his pennies, and self-financed his own campaigns.

*cough*

In truth, Coburn was in college 1966-1970 (accounting) and was hired directly out of school by daddy’s firm. No draft worries! He worked there for 8 years, somewhat randomly went to med school (maybe it was what he really wanted to do, perhaps dad offered to keep him out of war so long as he played ball?), played doctor for 11 years, then bought himself a seat in the House as part of the ’94 Redvolution. After 10 years there, he went for a Senate seat when one opened up. He is serving 2 terms, and says he will retire, a poor Congressional pensioner. Ha.

Coburn is, on the whole, OK. Rational and intelligent. Far from ideal, but he’s no Inhofe. Clinging to the usual conservo-memes, w/o being an actual nut.

What’s always gets me about the guy is that all his literature claims he ‘personally’ delivered X,000 babies for XX,000 patients. Like a trading card!

Scientist: If you think a seceding state could just walk away from its share of the national debt incurred while it was in the Union, you are in la-la land. Based on its having around 7% of the US population, if Texas goes, it’s on the hook for approximately $1.2 trillion. Bondholders would probably demand immediate payment.

As much fun as this idea is to contemplate (so many different ways and viewpoints on how to ‘equitably’ assign said debt!), this would only happen in the case of an amicable split, and, ultimately, who would enforce it? Would require a treaty of sorts. Morally, the states are on the hook for a share of the debt, but, literally, the entity known as the United States Government is the debtor.

As for Federal property, it’s more entertaining to imagine the gov’t insisting on retaining major holdings, large military bases, etc., like islands in the middle of the new state.

Dr. Conspiracy: Here’s an article about “lawful secession” that fails to mention what law that is.

nice. The money passage:

“… the legal way for states to withdraw is individually, state-by-state after conducting a state secession convention very much like a state constitutional convention on 10th Amendment issues.

Most of the individual states originally joined the union through this process and it is how individual states must lawfully leave the union. This is the same method followed by the individual Confederate States of America when they withdrew one by one following the election of Abraham Lincoln.

The right of democratic state-by-state secession did not die at the point of a bayonet at Appomattox Court House in 1865 after Lincoln’s invasion killed 600,000 Americans…”

Dr. Conspiracy: Here’s an article about “lawful secession” that fails to mention what law that is.

To pile on, he opens with a whopper of a failed analogy:

“Although peoples and regions around the world are in the process of withdrawing from debt laden, failed central governments including Scotland, Venice, Catalonia, Bavaria, Flanders and others …”

Comparing US states to former European kingdoms, city states, duchies, principalities? Quite a stretch … European states were molded by force, often externally. US states were formed by homesteaders whose main goal was …. to form a new state!

And to say ‘around the world’ and then serve up only European examples … ? I think the author did a lazy Google search. There’s a list of European secessionaist movements on Wiki 😉

JPotter: As much fun as this idea is to contemplate (so many different ways and viewpoints on how to ‘equitably’ assign said debt!), this would only happen in the case of an amicable split, and, ultimately, who would enforce it? Would require a treaty of sorts. Morally, the states are on the hook for a share of the debt, but, literally, the entity known as the United States Government is the debtor.

In the cases that Mr Holland has cited, the operating assumption is that the departing entity would take its share of the debt, generally based on the ratio of population. Here is an article regarding the case of Scotland http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2012/feb/27/scotland-independent-debt-deficit. As far as the bonds saying “United States of America” on them, that is true, but I don’t think the US could dissolve itself and reconstitute under a new name and claim they no longer owed the money Anymore than you or I could change our names and get out of all our debts. Anyone who was pary to the borrowing owes their fair share.

There is also the issue of currency, as anyone payiing attention to the Euro crisis must know. A departing Texas would have 2 choices. They could continue to use the US dollar, in which case they would have no say in setting the monetary policy under which they would live. They would, in effect, be Greece or Spain. Or, they could make their own currency. How would that affect the trillions that Texas people and corporations owe to entities in the remaining states, and vice versa? Good question. At a minimum, there would be a mess, sort of like the Grexit situation.

The truly ridiculous thing is that the negotiations to implement such a “divorce” would take much longer than the remainder of the Obama Administration. Secession over real cultural and llnguistic differences, like in Flanders or Quebec, or real economic differences, like Northern v Southern Italy, is one thing. Doing it over not liking the administration of the day is quite another.

Finally, if Texas seceded, what would prevent the heavily Hispanic parts of Texas from seceding from the new country and either going it alone or joining Mexico or the remaining US?

JPotter: As for Federal property, it’s more entertaining to imagine the gov’t insisting on retaining major holdings, large military bases, etc., like islands in the middle of the new state.

Which would make an amicable split all the less probable. And an inamicable split would likely lead to war military conflict – with the added bonus that the US military would have no problem intervening since the state would be foreign soil with foreign citizens on it. 🙂

What birthers are dreaming of is rather a scenario where all the red states in the middle of the country would secede, then join again as the “United Conservative States”, splitting the “Democrat remainder” at the East and West coast in two and taking most of the armed forces with them. Effectively an expulsion of the few blue states. That’s what it boils down to.

Scientist: I don’t think the US could dissolve itself and reconstitute under a new name and claim they no longer owed the money Anymore than you or I could change our names and get out of all our debts.

Well, on an individual basis, it’s been done (it’s a classic fraud), and even on a nat’l scale, but that tends to involve military action and have drastic economic consequences. When the country owes the cash to it’s own citizenry, it’s suicide.

There’s another basic, but very serious issue with these breakaway fantasies …. water rights and access to navigable waterways. The federal gov’t would not be serving inland states well if it allowed there ocean access to skip town, or serving coastal states well if it failed to protect their access to freshwater.

As for Red states seceding, forming a new Great Plains / Deep South Confederacy, Jesus …. I would have to the leave (new) country then!

There’s no way such a split would stay amicable, or equitable. More red pie-in-the-sky. These cultural division have no borders on maps anyway. Even Okieland is a full third blue. It more closely resembles a city/country fight, but even that isn’t a perfect representation. These divisions are only in our minds.

Now that is a pipe dream! I would more easily envision a “We’ll handle the debt, but we’re taking our toys” agreement. All those missile silos on the Plains (well, the ones still occupied) …. if we don’t want Iran to have a bomb, why would we want the People’s Theocratic Republic of South Dakota to have them?

This wingnut at Orly’s site is gonna make sure that nobody takes away his second amendment rights like President Obama has been trying to do for the last four years! They’re wise to him this time around, just listen:

“Resident Obama, 17 hours after stealing another 4 years is now going to push the UN gun control treaty. Guns and ammunition are flying off the shelves. 100 million American gun owners just might teach him the error of his ways. One can only hope.Our Declaration of Independence is still in full force and can be used at our discretion at any time. O-bot scum…Beware!”

The NRA has done it again, stoked up the fear just as they did in ’08, for a national gun-buying spree! I remember sitting there, watching these wingnuts scrambling for every last box of ammunition they could get their hands on because “PBO was gonna take it all from them!”. Four years later, no new gun laws or restrictions but they managed to drum up sales all over again.

They don’t mind threatening the President, either. It’s become a way of life for these RWNJ’s. Whatever happened to the martial law that PBO was allegedly going to impose immediately prior to the elections so he couldn’t be voted out? Their answer to that is that he knew he was able to “cheat” and win so there was no need for martial law. There will be next time because he’s not going to step down, no sirreee! He’s gonna be the dictator for life according to these “well-informed Fox-watching bozos”.

Orly’s sockpuppet is back in full force or it’s someone making fun of her, just read “The Right Thing’s” high praise of DokterOrlenaTaitzESQ. If we had just listened to her, Washington, D.C. would be all cleaned up!

As easy as it is to laugh at the nutjobs, it’s still frightening when you realize they have the right to vote.

Orly is just peeing herself with glee because the Texas secession petition has garnered 35,000 signatures and apparently 25,000 signatures means that the White House will review it. I guess she figures that “the petition will be reviewed” means “the petition will be granted”. I suspects Orly has never applied for a job and gotten the response “we will review your qualifications….”. I also suspect that if she applied for and was not selected for a job, she would be giddy when the employer told her “We will keep your resume on file.”

Just thinking about 35,000 signatures on a petition. Even making the rather bold assumption that these are 35,000 unique signatures all from Texas, there are still 25,674,681 people in Texas, which is the 2nd most populous state in the union. 35,000 represents 0.14% of the people. Hardly a decisive majority.

Sometimes they swear they are heading to South America. It continues to be the refuge of the far right. Has been for centuries. (I will not mention the goose-steppers, i will not mention the goose-steppers…..)

Here’s another point to ponder. Historically, austerity has often engendered reactionary nationalism. We’re seeing it now in Greece (Golden Dawn). Our reactionaries decry the possibility of “being the next Greece” and yet clamor for austerity. Are they setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy? Coupled with the alternate universe of white evangelicals that is loudly calling for a redoubling down into unreality … it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

This point cannot be repeated strongly enough, especially since the “secession” meme is going to be the new fad for the crybabies (and sadly, also some who have become too disgusted by the crybabies too) for quite some time. So we’ll be seeing this STUPID, STUPID, STUPID meme gain quite a bit of dangerous momentum for awhile.

BUT it is NOT practical and will NOT happen – as it really IS against the law. It would NOT happen peacefully and would trigger federal/military action to prevent it…which would have to kick in, as soon as ANY stupid movement within a state tried to take such an illegal action…and therefore, would have to be dealt with, before any “state” could officially “approve” such a movement, in a way in which in could be self-sufficient or defend itself…

…and of course that goes for “blocks” of states trying to all pull away at once too. This isn’t the 1800’s. Folks can’t seriously plan and coordinate the necessary steps to pull off such a movement, without folks that would oppose such an alarming action (both government AND mere civilian) catching wind of these traitorous plans. So, before any serious secessionist movement could get very far, it would be found out and force the hand of the actual federal government to take some sort of swift action to stop such illegal efforts. This most likely would be treated as some form of federal police action against an insurgent criminal organization at this stage (think how our country addressed Waco or Ruby Ridge) and whether that turned out really ugly/bloody or even forced a protracted “stand off”…or even spread to a few other likewise “foolish” areas, it would be contained and way outmatched in terms of the resources it could bring to bear to support and sustain it. Again, this is the 21st century, not the 1800’s…once such a plot is found out, our actual government would be able to move massive amounts of preventative resources to these areas of “uprising” extremely quickly…and to have ways to cut off access to power or utilities and such…so there just isn’t the time for the insurgency to organize before it could be stopped and snuffed out.

For every bloodthirsty hater who wanted to join the traitors, there would also be a number of folks, even within that very same attempting “secession state”, who are opposed and horrified by the very idea of secession…so no, such a dangerous and foolish idea is not going to end up as the “spark of freedom” that these fools think… containment efforts will end up both deterring and discouraging many from jumping into the serious reality of what an actual insurrection against such a superior force can mean…whether that translates into long prison sentences or risk of life or limb…such stark realities are a lot less appealing than the masterbatory fantasies these wannabe sore-loser “patriots” grasp.

There is precislely ZERO ways for a state to legally and Constitutionally leave the United States, see Texas v White

“In accepting original jurisdiction, the court ruled that Texas had remained a state ever since it first joined the Union, despite its joining the Confederate States of America and its being under military rule at the time of the decision in the case. In deciding the merits of the bond issue, the court further held that the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally secede from the United States, and that the ordinances of secession, and all the acts of the legislatures within seceding states intended to give effect to such ordinances, were “absolutely null”.”

The only way would be to first get a Constitutional Amendment raised that would allow such a thing to occur, then go through the ratification process and only THEN would it be possible for a state to secede from the USA.

Oh, darn. Wouldn’t you know, the Texas petition has by far the most signatures of any on the WH website. Now over 102,000. There is now a petition requesting that the city of Austin, the capital and a liberal stronghold, be allowed to secede from Texas and remain in the US. Cute.

An “amicable split” will NOT happen. Beyond what Bovril pointed out, in which this IS settled law, the entire concept of a state seceeding from the USA is simply too dangerous and destabilizing of a concept to be allowed to go forward “amicably” and therefore would NOT be allowed to foment as a serious threat…it really is a line in the sand that cannot be crossed. It would not just destabilize and harm this nation in many, many ways, but also cause a lot of turmoil throughout the entire globe.

If you think the economy, both here and globally is fragile now…just think of what would happen to markets, if the notion that the world’s main superpower and economic force, could experience a break-up.

The concept of a divided USA is really the greatest national security threat, both here and abroad, that could take place. No matter how you look at it, you’ve just created potentially hostile border nation(s) in the one place in the world, where that hasn’t been a real concern. And the slippery slope is too dangerous in terms of allowing ANY breakup to happen…I mean once a group of unhappy whiners get to break-away, what is there to prevent that becoming an increasing reoccurence, whenever spoiled bullies don’t get their way? That goes for both what would remain of the US (which would be subject to continuous threat of internal weakening, balkanization and break-away areas) and EVEN more so within a new nation, formed from selfish sore-losers in the first place…so you have a political environment that is now more governable via dictatorships than accepting the will of actual democracy…and such unstable governance means that opposing break-away states are more likely to be national security threats to each other than just happy trading partners…because if they could truly “get along”…then they wouldn’t have forced the issue to break-away from one of the most stable, advanced and mature democracies in the first place.

…and don’t think for a moment that other world actors would not take advantage of a distracted or weakened USA to to “reshape” global or regional dynamics in ways that they would never otherwise attempt, if the whole concept of the USA and its power turned out to not be as strong, enduring and influential as they’ve come to know.

Look, I know these whiney idiots get annoying and there is a lot of ire directed towards the “red states” where they obviously dominate. But it really is nearly as irresponsible for folks to say “let them have state X” as it is for the traitorous cry-baby cretins who are threatening secession…you folks who say such things are only helping to turn a really bad, bad, bad idea into an increasing meme that cannot practically happen without very severe and negative consequences. So please, I understand the frustration, but stop encouraging it.

Even in the reddest of red states, there are plenty of folks who DON’T want to see the USA fail…even if they are unhappy with the US government…and who would not want to be banished from the union or be forced to either relocate elsewhere or turn their neighborhoods into a haven for an influx of other sore-loser refugees. Don’t for a moment think that those particular USA-preferrring folks (in TX or OK or LA or wherever…) would all just go along quietly and amicably with any serious “break away” effort either.

No, the situation and status of the USA, whether you are unhappy with it or not, is fairly important and unique in what it still represents – whether as a symbol for the hope of civilization and democracy, or economic strength, or military power….

It just isn’t realistic to harbor fantasies of “banishing” states or allowing states to “break away” from the USA, without very rapidly fomenting much broader instability, panic and violent civil unrest, both within and without. Once that starts, stability would only be restored by stopping/reversing the “secession” and restoring the union to whole, in a manner where both the union and the world didn’t perceive the USA as subject to such fragile weakness again…

…So there is just nothing good that will come from going down that road…or even allowing such idle and irresponsible chatter to manifest towards becoming a serious possibility.

JPotter: As much fun as this idea is to contemplate (so many different ways and viewpoints on how to ‘equitably’ assign said debt!), this would only happen in the case of an amicable split, and, ultimately, who would enforce it? Would require a treaty of sorts. Morally, the states are on the hook for a share of the debt, but, literally, the entity known as the United States Government is the debtor.
As for Federal property, it’s more entertaining to imagine the gov’t insisting on retaining major holdings, large military bases, etc., like islands in the middle of the new state.

All very real and excellent points, which reinforce why this irresponsible tantrum talk of “secession” will not be allowed to ever actually happen…and more importantly….why it would not be workable.

Scientist: There is also the issue of currency, as anyone payiing attention to the Euro crisis must know. A departing Texas would have 2 choices. They could continue to use the US dollar, in which case they would have no say in setting the monetary policy under which they would live. They would, in effect, be Greece or Spain. Or, they could make their own currency. How would that affect the trillions that Texas people and corporations owe to entities in the remaining states, and vice versa? Good question. At a minimum, there would be a mess, sort of like the Grexit situation.

The truly ridiculous thing is that the negotiations to implement such a “divorce” would take much longer than the remainder of the Obama Administration. Secession over real cultural and llnguistic differences, like in Flanders or Quebec, or real economic differences, like Northern v Southern Italy, is one thing. Doing it over not liking the administration of the day is quite another. Finally, if Texas seceded, what would prevent the heavily Hispanic parts of Texas from seceding from the new country and either going it alone or joining Mexico or the remaining US?

Exactly. Although as I’ve pointed out, I don’t think it would even be able to get far enough along to become an actual “military conflict”…as the efforts to decide and coordinate any serious “break-away” attempt simply cannot happen within our own country, without OTHER people who don’t support the idea becoming quickly aware of it, before it can actually “happen”.

…at which point, you quickly force the hands, both at the federal level AND of elements within that potential “break away” area that are NOT onboard, to try to quickly defuse and oppose the effort from moving forward in the first place.

The Magic M: Which would make an amicable split all the less probable. And an inamicable split would likely lead to war military conflict – with the added bonus that the US military would have no problem intervening since the state would be foreign soil with foreign citizens on it.

Which is why their fantasy scenario has no connection to reality…and like nearly everything RWNJ and birther, is completely based on “magic thinking” and not implementable within our real world dynamic.

These fools operate under the dangerous (to themselves) delusion that the actual US military and all actual law enforcement forces near them would somehow automatically be on their traitorous side…when in reality, even most official sources that might otherwise be sympathetic to their viewpoints, would NOT want to let secession happen…and would be more likely to risk their own lives to put down a smaller insurrectionist threat than to have to face off against the resources and might that the USA can actually bring to bear against such fledgling cranks.

…These secessionist folks would immediately become terroritsts and traitors…and only crazy and obsessed extremists would even take the lead to enact such an irresponsible course of action. Not many smart and thinking people are going to want to roll the dice on aligning with that type of crazy coalition….I mean look at the entire birther movement as an example – beyond being mainly elderly, they are extremely incompetent and terrible at organizing and learning from their own mistakes…

…so just think for a moment how much of a debacle an attempt to actually overthrow a government would be, coming from this clown show crowd…

The Magic M: What birthers are dreaming of is rather a scenario where all the red states in the middle of the country would secede, then join again as the “United Conservative States”, splitting the “Democrat remainder” at the East and West coast in two and taking most of the armed forces with them. Effectively an expulsion of the few blue states. That’s what it boils down to.

JPotter: There’s no way such a split would stay amicable, or equitable. More red pie-in-the-sky. These cultural division have no borders on maps anyway. Even Okieland is a full third blue. It more closely resembles a city/country fight, but even that isn’t a perfect representation. These divisions are only in our minds.
America is thoroughly mentally miscegenated.

THIS!!!! Great point about why we could never allow our actual military assets in these areas to become property of another nation…

And if these folks just think that ALL of the military folks AT those sites would immediately turn traitor to their nation and jump ship to form a new break-away republic, instead of USE those very same assets and bases to STOP the secessionist traitors from within… …or that what remains of the USA wouldn’t be forced to take any means necessary to recover or (worst case scenario – destroy) those sites and assets, should they fall into secessionist’s hands…

Yeah…real messy…and NOT in the secessionists favor at all…

JPotter: …. if we don’t want Iran to have a bomb, why would we want the People’s Theocratic Republic of South Dakota to have them?
Yep, total mess.

Many sites have been reporting on this and noting that many of the names on each of these state secession petitions are the same…and seem to represent more folks who are NOT from a particular state, than who actually are…

…the whole thing is just an embarassing hissy-fit of no consequence, other than it is garnishing way too much media attention and therefore allowing such the notion of such irresponsible behavior to enter into the actual national “conversation” marketplace, way beyond where it should….

Which will just increase the popularity of this stupid fetish fantasy tantrum meme to stick around and spread for a bit longer….to the point that it will sadly inspire a few crazies to try to harm people…

Sadly, I expect this to increasingly become one of the main dominant “themes” of these sore losers for at least several months…

I suspect that this blog site will end up having quite a few topic posts on it, as cries of “secession” becomes one of the main outlet threat attempts amongst birtherism, tea-partyism and other sore-loser RWNJ and anti-gov paranoid groups and hate groups…

Thrifty: Just thinking about 35,000 signatures on a petition. Even making the rather bold assumption that these are 35,000 unique signatures all from Texas, there are still 25,674,681 people in Texas, which is the 2nd most populous state in the union. 35,000 represents 0.14% of the people. Hardly a decisive majority.

Although when I was young, my liberal father seriously started making actual attempts to relocate our family to Australia or New Zealand (worried about WWIII and those being those most likely places of civilization to be outside of a fallout zone)…

…it was quite scary. My dad back then reminds me of Harrison Ford’s character in Mosquito Coast… Thankfully, that was in the 80’s, when long distance calls were difficult and the internet didn’t exist and therefore it was hard to plan to relocate a family half way across the world…thankfully, he only had a crazy idea and NO actual connections to make it happen…so my angry mom was able to finally wear him down, as she put her foot down and said he could not move us and interrupt our school year…

Fortunately, he’s mellowed a lot since then.

Thrifty: Angry liberals threaten to ragequit America and go to Canada (but almost never do).
Angry conservatives threaten to ragequit America by staying home and basically telling everyone else to leave.

Well, I find this extremely ironic, since the Civil War and the TX situation is the clear legal reason WHY secession has been proven to not be allowed under our Constitution.

…However, the admittance of TX into the Union also has an interesting and still viable clause, in which TX can legally be split into several US states…

Sudoku:
Oh, darn.Wouldn’t you know, the Texas petition has by far the most signatures of any on the WH website.Now over 102,000. There is now a petition requesting that the city of Austin, the capital and a liberal stronghold,be allowed to secede from Texas and remain in the US.Cute.

it takes less than nothing to fill out an online petition. so the so-called secession movement thus far hasn’t demanded anything significant like time, labor or money from any of its members. if it ever does, expect the herd to dramatically thin.

but having them on the white house website does make a nice safe and traceable outlet for a lot of buttsore wingnuts. the dept. of homeland security thanks you for your cooperation.

G: BUT it is NOT practical and will NOT happen – as it really IS against the law.

Not only but also… These folks are in general Constitution lovers, and undoubtedly took the Oath of Allegiance every day of their school lives (I suppose some of them went to school anyway) and probably every chance they get to show off their credentials as patriotic ‘merkins.

Keith: Not only but also… These folks are in general Constitution lovers, and undoubtedly took the Oath of Allegiance every day of their school lives (I suppose some of them went to school anyway) and probably every chance they get to show off their credentials as patriotic ‘merkins.

G: These fools operate under the dangerous (to themselves) delusion that the actual US military and all actual law enforcement forces near them would somehow automatically be on their traitorous side…

Their viewpoint has always been “the silent majority is on my side”, which is why they thought birtherism, or being fed up with Obama in general, was a majority issue.

I just laugh when I see them painting a couple thousand wingnuts (remember, there’s no ID required to sign a petition, and voting multiple times is possible, as is voting on another state’s petition – what an irony for a movement that claimed this happened in the 11/6 elections) demanding secession as “many states are demanding secession”.
Last time I checked, 20,000 loons did not speak for “the state”, let alone were its official representatives.

Exactly. They are so tribal-based in their thinking that they mostly associate only with folks who think, look and act like them and only listen to sources that tell them what they wish to hear. So naturally, they assume that the world is mostly made up of their own like-minded clones…

…which is why elections like 2012 and 2008 are such a shock to their system…even though most everyone else could see its likelihood.

…and why all their delusional dreams of millions like them rising up, unopposed, will thankfully not happen.

The Magic M: Their viewpoint has always been “the silent majority is on my side”, which is why they thought birtherism, or being fed up with Obama in general, was a majority issue.

I just laugh when I see them painting a couple thousand wingnuts (remember, there’s no ID required to sign a petition, and voting multiple times is possible, as is voting on another state’s petition – what an irony for a movement that claimed this happened in the 11/6 elections) demanding secession as “many states are demanding secession”.
Last time I checked, 20,000 loons did not speak for “the state”, let alone were its official representatives.

Dr. Conspiracy: Compare this to 590,000 persons who have signed (as of yesterday) the petition for Macy’s to drop Donald Trump as its spokesperson.

Don’t forget, for birthers, 20,000 people is an almost incomprehensibly large number. They are used to getting 20 people on their rallies and about 200 on a typical echo chamber website. Of course they’re going ape over such high numbers allegedly supporting their cause. (Because deep down inside they know they don’t have 2 or 20 or 200 million who are just waiting for the magic word to march on Washington.)

Dr. Conspiracy: Compare this to 590,000 persons who have signed (as of yesterday) the petition for Macy’s to drop Donald Trump as its spokesperson.

I’ve heard reports of a Macy’s / Trump commercial, in which Trump birfs Santa. Can’t find it anywhere …. has anyone else seen it? hopefully it has been swept under a rug. But not down the memory hole. Stupid should have a price. Without a price, no lesson will be learned. 😉

This is the usual MO, Trump makes an ass of himself, then generates PR for himself and his partners by making fun of himself for being an ass.

I’ve never been to Macy’s …. from my impression of the brand, Trump best represents the reality / superficialty of wannbe-classy, department-store retail, but in no way does he represents what the image they should want to be projecting …. unless they are competing with Wal-Mart for the Jerry Springer set.

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